THE MASK OF TRANSMISSION: RACE, TRANSMISSION, AND THE HIDDEN CULTURAL GENEALOGIES OF AMERICAN LITERATURE, 1837-1927 by KAREN ILENE EBLEN B.A., (English) Fort Lewis College, 1995 B.A., (Media Arts) Fort Lewis College, 1995 M.A., University of Colorado, 2003 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English 2013 This thesis entitled: The Mask of Transmission: Race, Transnationalism, and the Hidden Cultural Genealogies of American Literature, 1823-1927 written by Karen Ilene Eblen has been approved for the Department of English Cheryl Higashida Anna Brickhouse Date April 12, 2013 The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. Eblen, Karen Ilene (Ph.D., English) The Mask of Transmission: Race, Transnationalism, and the Hidden Cultural Genealogies of American Literature, 1837-1927 Thesis directed by Associate Professor Cheryl Higashida (University of Colorado) and Associate Professor Anna Brickhouse (University of Virginia) This dissertation examines transamerican and transatlantic genealogies of nineteenth-century African American literature that are illuminated by examining masks and masking in tragic mulatto and passing narratives from France, the Caribbean, and the U.S.. I show how masking permeates the formal features of these narratives; brings feminine stories of incarceration, captivity, and cloistering to bear on masculine narratives of mobility and revolution; and illuminates some of the conditions and sites through which modern black subjectivity is formed and represented. The project explores a range of disparate narratives, from Victor Hugo’s Bug-Jargal, Claire de Duras’s “Ourika,” and Gustave de Beaumont’s Marie, or Slavery in the United States: A Novel of Jacksonian America (Race in the Americas) to Victor Séjour’s “The Mulatto,” Alexandre Dumas’s Georges and The Man in the Iron Mask, to William Wells Brown’s Clotel; or, the President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States and Eloise Bibb- Thompson’s “Masks, a Story.” Although my project makes use of comparative Americas, transatlantic, and transamerican analytical frameworks, one of the objectives of this dissertation is to illustrate how the texts I explore establish the starting point for a specifically African American literary genealogy through a common discourse they engage, despite the many differences between them. Through their borrowing and sampling, these divergent texts from varied circumstances and historical moments extend the boundaries of the African American literary tradition as we know it, showing it to be self-consciously transatlantic and transamerican in ways that the Anglo-American literary tradition could not acknowledge itself to be. Dedication I dedicate my dissertation to my mother, Shirley L. Johnson Eblen, for inspiring me to read, and keeping me up late one night to watch a Friday night movie on TV, “Imitation of Life.;” to my sister, Sharon J. Eblen, J.D., for her encouragement and example; to my late brother Jerry L. Eblen for always challenging me; to my late father, Jimmy L. Eblen’s interest in family genealogy; and to all of my advisers, friends and peers (and strangers), who endured painfully long discussions about issues they may have preferred to never consider. “ Acknowledgements This dissertation topic was inspired by many intersecting coincidences among my varied interests--literature, history, art, film, music, (especially the blues, bebop, jazz, and rock and roll), and I sincerely thank the writers, poets, troubadours, minstrels and popular culture icons who initiated the dialogues that I examine in my project. Completing this phase of my work has truly been a collective effort. I want to acknowledge and thank my exceptionally brilliant co-advisers and pedagogues, Anna Brickhouse and Cheryl Higashida, for their diligent consideration of my ideas and readings, and for their tremendous encouragement and engagement that far surpassed their duties. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Brickhouse for her advice, mentoring, and friendship throughout my master's, and doctoral studies, and continuing to do so once her career took her to the University of Virginia. I also truly appreciate her patience and tolerance during my numerous mishaps. I have been very fortunate to work with such amazingly gifted scholars, writers, and teachers at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and want to thank Martin Bickman, Kelly Hurley, and John-Michael Rivera for their insightful suggestions and support of this dissertation. I would also like to mention Larry Hartsfield, E.K. Daufin, Roland Jones, Paul Pavich, and Jim Wehmeyer for telling me the truth while never doubting my ability. I appreciate my peers that thoughtfully listened and shared ideas with me: Jennifer Armstrong, Korri Roach, Ann Stockho, Garian Vigil, and Erika Wurth. Thank you my dear friend Kirsten Love for being a woman who loves RUSH and can listen to anyone go on and on about anything, for supporting me and keeping me going through all the good and bad stuff. Thank you to Curtis and Jonathan Endicott for your continued support during the roughest times. Thank you Jon P. Allen, II for rekindling my motivation when I needed it most. A gracious thank you to the Texas Christian University English Department and the TCU library for allowing me privileges while working away from my department. Thanks mom, Sharon, Mark A. Cox and all of my SWTOR buddies online, and especially old friends in the hometown who welcomed me back. The Mask of Transmission: Race, Transnationalism, and the Hidden Cultural Genealogies of American Literature, 1837-1927 CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 I. INTRODUCTION French Pretense: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity in Ourika, Bug Jargal, and Marie or Slavery in the United States………………………………. 1 II. French Facades: Cloistering and the Subtleties of Veiled Insurgence in Ourika………………………………………………………………………………………………………. 15 CHAPTER 2 III. Lost in a Masquerade: Bug-Jargal, Masking, Mixing, and Misrepresentation ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 41 CHAPTER 3 IV. Offering truth under the veil of fiction: Gustave de Beaumont’s Marie or Slavery in the United States and the Genetic Geography of Jacksonian America’s Mores……………………………………………………………………………………… 68 CHAPTER 4 V. Metaphor, Masking, and the Master: Victor Séjour’s The Mulatto and Alexandre Dumas’s Georges…………………………………………………………………………………… 86 CHAPTER 5 VI. INTRODUCTION Masked Men and Women in the Attic from Post-bellum to the Harlem Renaissance……………………………………………………………………………… 100 VII. Transamerican Interracialism: The Politics of Literary History, National Identity and Genetic Inheritance in Eloise Bibb-Thompson's Masks, A Story………. 109 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………..……………………………………………………………………………………… 129 Eblen 1 Introduction French Pretense: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity in Ourika, Bug-Jargal, and Marie or Slavery in the United States The recognized canon of African-American literature is fraught with questions about racial mixing, cultural admixture, and tales of blacks passing into white, U.S. society—and not just the fictions. Many of these renowned African-American thinkers and writers experienced conflict because of confusion about racial classifications first hand during their lives and careers. The prejudices and disadvantages for blacks in the early nineteenth-century United States were muddled with definitions of legal statuses, whether a blacks’ status was free or enslaved. Although France’s legislations regarding race informed the earliest statutes in the United States, there was still some romanticized or nostalgic ideal that France, and on a slightly lower scale, Britain and Spain, afforded people of African descent more opportunities, tolerance, and less discrimination, especially among the literati of Paris.1 In fact, there is a plethora of information regarding the positions and assimilation of blacks into French society after World War I, but fewer studies examine the atmosphere that allowed for similar emigrations in the early nineteenth-century.2 However, many free blacks left Louisiana after the territory sold in 1803 to relocate in Paris. Victor Séjour, who plays prominently in this study as the author of the first work of African-American fiction, traveled to France and never returned to the U.S. after publishing The Mulatto in 1837, enjoying a good deal of success as a playwright in the Paris 1 Historians propose that the first African American visitor to France was likely Thomas Jefferson’s slave, Sally Hemmings, who is also recognized as the inspiration for William Wells Brown’s 1853 novel, Clotel. Sally was companion to Jefferson’s daughter Martha and accompanied them to Paris while Jefferson was ambassador from 1787 to 1789. http://www.monticello.org/site/plantation-and-slavery/sally-hemings 2 Keaton, Trica Danielle, T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, and Tyler Stovall, (Eds.) Black France / France noire: The History and Politics of Blackness. (2012). http://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-0-8223-5262- 4_601.pdf Web. 7 April 2013. Eblen 2 theater. As a free black born to Haitian immigrants in the U.S. and an African American artist visiting France, this environment of relative freedom would have been a welcome respite from the oppression of free blacks in the U.S., and the harsh realities